world of shadows.

The Judge had lost his iron energy and banter. He was growing taciturn
and morose. The Bar remarked the change, as well they might. His friends
thought him ill. The doctor said he was troubled with hypochondria, and
that his gout was still lurking in his system, and ordered him to that
ancient haunt of crutches and chalk-stones, Buxton.

The Judge's spirits were very low; he was frightened about himself; and
he described to his housekeeper, having sent for her to his study to
drink a dish of tea, his strange dream in his drive home from Drury Lane
Playhouse. He was sinking into the state of nervous dejection in which
men lose their faith in orthodox advice, and in despair consult quacks,
astrologers, and nursery storytellers. Could such a dream mean that he
was to have a fit, and so die on the both? She did not think so. On the
contrary, it was certain some good luck must happen on that day.

The Judge kindled; and for the first time for many days, he looked for a
minute or two like himself, and he tapped her on the cheek with the hand
that was not in flannel.

"Odsbud! odsheart! you dear rogue! I had forgot. There is young
Tom--yellow Tom, my nephew, you know, lies sick at Harrogate; why shouldn't
he go that day as well as another, and if he does, I get an estate by
it? Why, lookee, I asked Doctor Hedstone yesterday if I was like to take
a fit any time, and he laughed, and swore I was the last man in town to
go off that way."

The Judge sent most of his servants down to Buxton to make his lodgings
and all things comfortable for him. He was to follow in a day or two.